


I Prefer Water Over Wine

by CronutsAmpora



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Humanstuck, M/M, Mermaid Amporas, Merstuck, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-15 14:21:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9238808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CronutsAmpora/pseuds/CronutsAmpora
Summary: This is my artwork (through azalea doll maker) of what the Merporas look like.http://the-debilitated-highbloods.tumblr.com/post/161685213404





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my artwork (through azalea doll maker) of what the Merporas look like.  
> http://the-debilitated-highbloods.tumblr.com/post/161685213404

You, like any other person in the world with half a brain, know that there is a difference between being alone and being lonely. However, your brother obviously doesn't know this because he looks worried every single time you grab your knapsack and your jacket and head out into the night. You ignore him because you know you will be home in the morning, you always are.

Your sneakers hardly make a sound anymore as you walk along the sandy bits near the ocean. You drop your bag over a ledge and follow it quietly. As you snuggle into the little niche that is there just for you, you smile a bit because you know that a head is already raising out of the water, as quiet as a whisper.

Violet eyes watch you as you undo your knapsack and take out your reading light, a book, and a little baggie of goldfish crackers. Fins flutter when you shake the bag and you laugh, coaxing the other to join you. His tail flicks to bring him in close, his arms holding him up on the rock as he leans in and kisses you sweetly on the lips.

Your smile returns and you open the bag of goldfish as you tease him, "You're such an ass."

His voice is smooth and warm, unlike the icy-cold kisses he gives you, "You take too long wwhen openin it, it's torture a the wworst degree."

You pop one in your mouth to watch him look scandalized, then slowly give him the bag. He acts like an excited little kid with them and you slowly pull out the book to start reading. He quiets down and watches you with his undivided attention, nibbling on a cracker from time to time.

It's quiet, it's peaceful, it makes you happy. You'll sit there for hours with him, reading aloud as he listens to you. At some point, you'll get tired and he'll squirm up close enough to grab the tiny blanket you have and tuck you in. He'll tell you to go to sleep and you'll refuse, which he always huffs about, but gives in. Then he'll put a present or two for you in the little baggie before quieting down and you'll pretend to be asleep to watch him hold your hand. He'll murmur softly to you, almost cooing as he tells you sweet things. If you say anything or prove you're awake, his face will turn a violet and he'll squeeze your hand, the gentle webbing of his fingers pressing against your skin before he quietly sings you a siren's song, forcing you into sleep.

In the morning you'll wake up with a hand dangling over the water, your face against freezing stone, and he's nowhere.

However, that's what normally happen when you wake up.

This morning, you wake up with him blissfully asleep against you. He doesn't snore, but his fins flutter with every breath. His fingers are still tangled with your's and they're warm now from your body heat. His head is leaning against the rock, his hair curled and dangling even with his fins. You smile a bit and kiss his hand, startling him out of sleep.

His face flushes and he tries to pull his hand away, but you don't let him, instead you gently tug them closer to your chest. His eyes widen, but he doesn't look away, his focus solely on you.

He always gave you the attention and company you needed, and you're pretty sure that it's the same for him. Your red eyes focus on his violet ones and you watch as he slowly relaxes. You lean over and peck him on the lips, making him practically melt. The passion he returns with the kiss was unexpected, how he grabbed a fistful of your shirt to support himself to just kiss you like that would've left your knees weak.

After what seemed like forever, you both broke the kiss and just stared at each other. He slowly sunk back into the water and gave you a real treat, him smiling.

"God dammit, Eridan," was the first thing to slip out of your mouth, "You slippery barnacleball, if you jumped dick-first into everything like that, I might never leave again."

His face flushed again and his fins fluttered more as he kept his eyes on you. When he finally answered, a smile crept onto your face.

"I'll keep that in mind, Kar."


	2. Chapter 2

You have been very worried about your little brother for the last few months. He leaves in the middle of the evening and doesn't come home until the morning. This started about six months ago, but that was only once every few weeks. Then it slowly became once or twice every week, then every single day. He never tells you anything about it.

You try to follow him one night, but you make yourself known by panicking when he jumps off a mini ledge. You hear lots of splashing and your brother calling for whoever it was to come back. He didn't talk to you for a week. He barely spent any time at home that week. Your father is almost never home either, so you never get time to talk to him.

Your best friend hasn't been at school lately because of college trips and you are just so fucking lonely.

Lately you have been going out to this one little pier and just sitting on the ladder of it. You are hidden from everyone on the land and just let your feet hang in the water. Fish and seaweed tickle you toes, but you don't mind, you just like pretending you aren't lonely.

For the last two weeks you have liked relaxing like this, hiding from the feelings for being hated and just completely disliked and being useless.

"…. Hey, are you alright? You look sad…" You startle so badly when you hear a voice come from seemingly no where. You almost fall when you hear a splash, "Hey, sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, you knowv."

You stare all over before your eyes lock with a pair of fully violet ones. You mouth opens but your scream doesn't come. You're frozen in fear, not even able to shake.

It's ears (fins?) droop and it backs up a bit, "Sorry, I didn't think I'd scare you. Vwowv, my people skills are crud. I'm just going to leavwe, I only came looking for my brother…"

You manage to react and squeak a bit, asking what it was. It looks so upset as you scramble away, making it up to the pier, shaking all over.

"I'm a merman. Um… I'm Cronus."

It… He keeps his distance. From the pier you can see his long, beautiful violet tail curling in the are thinking of making a run for it, but he sinks down a bit, looking disappointed that he terrified you. It, well, it was an accident… He was just asking you if-

"I-I… I'm fine. Er, thank you… Cronus…." he looks at you with those fully-violet eyes and he smiles at you as he rises out of the water. His fins flicker and he swims up hesitantly to you.

"… So, vwhy vwere you upset?"

You keep staring and staring before you scoot to sit on the edge of the pier. He rests his arms on the ladder and watches you, obviously waiting for you to talk to him. This couldn't hurt, right? I mean, no one else will talk to you, so you should be fine, right?

You never would have guessed in a million years that you would fall head-over-heels in love with this merman.


	3. Chapter 3

When you finally took your two weeks of vacation from work you were not expecting to be alone at home. Your younger son took off with a large backpack, leaving a note that said he's going to spend the weekend with a friend. He didn't take his phone with him.

Your eldest son almost did the same thing, but you gently cut him off from the door and started to sweetly ask him questions. Where was he going? The pier. Who was he going with? No one. Would it be ok if you went with him? NO!

He looks scared at how violently he answered that, then he apologizes up and down to you. He tells you that you could join him, even though he looks pretty nervous about it. What was wrong with him?

He smiles at you and tells you that he will be waiting for you there.

Before he can bolt, you grab his arm, "Kankri, sweetheart, why are you so jumpy? Did I do something?"

"N-No, not at all, father, I just, um, wanted to make it more, um…"

"Kankri, are you lying to me?"

He looks so scared as you say that and your face softens a bit, "… Kankri? Are you?"

"I-I… Father, I-… I, um, I was on my way to see someone…"

"Do you have a girlfriend I don't know about?"

"… No."

"A boyfriend?"

"D-Dad!"

"Wonderful, I look forward to meeting him, come along, Kankri," you take his arm and gently lead him out the door. You don't even notice how terrified he looks, you just want to prove you're a good parent and you don't want to be lonely.

When you get out to the pier, you plop down and Kankri looks pretty nervous. He's looking down in the water, almost searching for something.

"… So, what's your boyfriend's name?"

"Father, I don't-"

"I had a boyfriend once, actually, I've had two boyfriends. I met one right here now that I think about it.."

He looks at you, a little surprised by that and you just give him a warm smile, "What? Did I never tell you that? He certainly was an interesting character, that's for sure. Even after we broke up we were still really close, you met his son when you were just a tiny little thing, I know you probably don't remember, you were maybe one or two, not really talking just yet… Atreus thought it was hilarious how you would toddle around on your tiny legs and just point intensely at Cr-... Oh dear."

Your gaze is now on a head poking out of the water, their face looks surprised and curious, fully violet eyes staring at you. You smile warmly and offer a hand down to them, "Cronus? My, it's been a while."

Kankri looks absolutely flabbergasted, unable to comprehend what is going on, so you smile a bit, "Kankri, if you were dating a merman you didn't need to hide it from me."

"Ah, chief? You dated my dad?"

You smile and run your fingers through your hair, "Oh. In fact, yes, yes I did, how is he, by the way? I haven't seen him since your mother passed."

"Blind and stubborn."

"Oh dear... Do you think he would come up if asked nicely? If he says no, tell him Michael would love to see him."

"I- Yes sir," you see a flash of a violet tail and he's gone.

You turn your attention back to Kankri to see an intensely confused look, so you hug him a bit and tell your story, starting from meeting the loud, stubborn little guppy through dating him as a nerd to the last time you saw him, just before Kankri started to talk (wow, what a time that was). Kankri is quiet through the whole story, looking like his whole life had been changed by this bit of information that you had withheld for nearly twenty years from him.

You stop mid-sentence as soon as you feel someone looking at you. Glancing down, you meet the gaze of an old merman, one eye strikingly violet compared to it's foggy, un-seeing twin. Two jagged scars have been struck across his face, making his face look absolutely sinister when paired with the horrid scowl on his face. He almost glides through the water to you and you just give him a warm smile, leaning down a bit. His hair is longer than before, it fans out behind him, almost like a cape and you can't help but think it suits him. His arms raise out of the water, slowly grabbing the wood of the pier next to you. He's so graceful and silent about the whole ordeal, not a drop making a sound as they fall gently back into the water. He hasn't changed a bit, yet he's a totally new person and you can't help but stare in awe.

You carefully cup his cheek as he raises himself up by his arms two whole feet, "Hello, Atreus. It's been quite a long time, my dear friend."

He's looking you over and you can hear Kankri and Cronus talking softly to each other, no doubt wondering what is going on with both of you, but they are absolutely silent the second Atreus' scowl softens and you lean forward, fully intent on kissing him, but you stop and just look at him, your foreheads meeting instead. Both your hands are on the clammy cheeks of the sea king and your grin cannot die down as you just keep looking him over.

"... I missed you, Michael. I missed you so much…" his voice is barely a whisper and you just wrap your arms around his neck to hug him close. He wraps an arm around your back and holds you close, his face buried in your neck and you feel like a teenager again when you two shared your first kiss under the pier, nervous with every butterfly in the world in your gut as you worried about who would see you and how the kiss would be in the first place. Suddenly your whole center of balance is thrown off as you are pulled forward. There is a loud splash and you are soaking wet and curled up against Atreus' chest. He's smirking and has you wrapped around his muscular torso. You splash his face, but he doesn't change the evil grin on his face as he leans in and kisses you softly.

A few minutes after you give in until you are laughing, someone clears their throat and you are looking at Kankri and Cronus, kind of a distraught look on their faces.

"Do vwe-? Ahem, uh, do vwe havwe to stop seeing each other? You knowv, because you both are macking…" Kankri is clinging to Cronus' arm, his face hidden, but Cronus' is stern as he holds Kankri close. "... You knowv, Eridan is vwith Karkat. They havwe been together longer than Kanny and I."

"Wwell, wwe aren't getting married and you aren't brothers, so go ahead."

You smile at how Kankri tackles Cronus into the water, before gasping and sputtering as he comes back up. You relax a little until you feel a cold face pressed into your neck, arms around you tightening their grip a bit. You pressed kisses to wet, tousled hair and listened to the deep thrum of his purr.

You meet Eridan later that night and you embarrass your other son enough to make up for your vacation being mildly inconvenienced.


End file.
